Botanical family: Acanthaceae

Bravaisia berlandieriana

USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map

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If you need a compact, pretty flowering plant for shade garden - this is a perfect one! It has pretty bell-shaped flowers, white with a pinking-purple lip, contrasting with dark foliage. Anyone would be happy to grow it right outside the door! It can be maintained as a low growing border plant or grow into a bush. Low water needs once established. Shade to filtered light preferable but can take full sun as well providing enough watering. Bravaisia berlandieriana is also used medicinally.

Chamaeranthemum venosum

Chamaeranthemum venosum is a small perennial plant native to Brazil, typically growing from two to five feet tall. Iit is popular for its ornamental foliage and the white, off-white, and pastel blue, lavender, and purple flowers it produces.

This plant is adaptable to a range of conditions and does best in semi-shade and with regular but not excessive watering. It is suitable for zones 9-11 of the USDA Plant Hardiness Zones. In colder climate it may need to be grown in a pot and brought inside during cold weather.

When growing Chamaeranthemum venosum, it is best to plant it in a sunny or semi-shaded area of your garden. If growing in a pot, you can use an all-purpose potting mix and add a slow-release fertilizer.

Overall, Chamaeranthemum venosum is a great choice for a low-maintenance, perennial plant with attractive foliage and a range of showy flowers. With minimal care it can provide a long-term addition to your garden.

Metarungia longistrobus

Metarungia longistrobus is an unusual, attractive evergreen shrub for the shade garden, with long orange-brown flowers in candle-shaped inflorescences in late summer.

It is a small, soft shrub, branching near the base to form a dense shrub 3-4 ft tall with a spread of 3 ft. Branchlets are densely covered in short white hairs that are close to the stem, and are stiff to silky to the touch.

The flowers are orange-brown to yellow and are produced twice a year: mainly in late summer to autumn but also in winter to spring. The flowers are 2-lipped, 2 in long, the upper lip is long, narrow, hooded and erect and the lower lip is rolled and twisted. The anthers and stigma are underneath the hood of the upper lip. The flowers are produced in 3-4 in long spikes at the tips of branches and on upper short side branches. The flowers emerge from between large, closely overlapping, green bracts, which give the inflorescence a cone-like appearance. The seeds are flattened discs released explosively from the seed capsules.

Metarungia longistrobus grows in wet to dry forest in kloofs and on rocky, wooded hillsides in Limpopo and Mpumalanga, as well as in Swaziland and Mozambique.

Metarungia longistrobus is pollinated by sunbirds which feed on the nectar. Bees and butterflies also visit the flowers. When the seeds are ripe, the seed capsule explodes and scatters the seeds on the ground around the parent plant.

The Sunbird Bush makes an unusual and beautiful garden shrub that can be planted as a specimen shrub in the shade garden, or as part of an informal hedge, or in containers, and it attracts sunbirds, bees and butterflies to the garden.

Metarungia longistrobus is quick-growing and easy to grow. It needs well-drained, well-composted, fertile soil with water during the summer months. It requires a position that is semi-shaded (preferably with morning sun), or in light shade, but flowers better in a position that receives a couple of hours of sun a day. It is suitable for planting on the south (shady) side of the house. It is a low-maintenance, undemanding garden shrub. Prune in winter to keep it tidy and to encourage branching. Also suitable for containers.

Metarungia longistrobus is easily propagated from seeds and cuttings. Sow seeds from spring to early summer (October to November), using a freely draining soil mix, keep warm and moist and they will germinate in about three weeks. Take softwood, tip cuttings and use a suitable rooting hormone. Plant them in a well-aerated medium, such as peat and polystyrene and keep them in a moist, warm environment such as a mist unit with bottom heating.

Sclerochiton harveyanus

Relatively unknown in the horticulture industry, this lovely indigenous shrub is sure to become more popular as gardeners discover what a treasure it is. Mauve-blue, unusually lipped flowers create a pretty floral display on this shade-loving shrub with its attractive glossy green foliage. The multistemmed rounded spread of this lovely shrub may reach 8x8 ft. Its branches are soft-wooded, thin and lax, and will occasionally scramble into neighboring vegetation. Foliage is glossy deep green above and dull green on the underside. Small delicate leaves are oval to elliptic. The numerous flowers produced in summer are lightly lavender-fragrant, and attractive to pollinating insects which encourage insect-feeding birds into the garden. Due to its fast-growing nature, suitability to shady conditions and unusual floral display this species has great horticultural value. It is best to grow it in a shaded to semishaded area of the garden. Plant in well-drained soil. Its habitat suggests that the soil should be rich in nutrients, mimicking the thick layer of leaf mould that covers the forest floor; so mulch well with plenty of compost or other organic matter, particularly if outside of a summer rainfall region. Provide a moderate water supply.

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